Correct answers below
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I mean, this is factually correct. They make it sound nefarious with "a single group of people" but it absolutely is true that capitalists control every aspect of society regardless of whether the president is red or blue.
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I mean, Bill Clinton was a regular at Little Saint James. It's funny to me that it's just democrats listed, like come on guys we know that rich people have engaged in pedophilia so at least some of them are dems lmao.
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No, dumb maga bullshit
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No, dumb maga bullshit
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No, dumb bullshit older than maga
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No, Alex Jones bullshit. I think the single greatest argument against this is just how ineffective every school shooting has been to create gun laws. Like why would they keep doing this if it never results in stricter regulations?
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I don't know about specific videos but Ukriane absolutely has openly lied about tons of shit in this war so I'm pretty comfortable saying they've blamed tons of shit they've done on Russia.
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If you incorporate a Nazi militia into your national military, does that make you a Nazi sympathizer? Like I don't think Zelensky himself is a Nazi but geez this question is hedging a lot.
I don't know what's scarier, that 19% of Americans believe that covid vaccines are used to microchip the population or that there's less Americans who know Ukraine's government is full of nazi sympathizers.
OTOH, vaxx chips have the second-highest "definitely false" rating, only sandy hook conspiracy scores a bit higher in that regard.
The first is scarier to me. The vast, overwhelming majority of Americans have absolutely no idea what's going on in the wider world. What percentage of Americans could even find Ukraine on a map? Maybe 10%? I don't think a majority could even find Russia.
Serious question: Do Americans have world maps, globes and atlases in their schools and homes?
In their schools, yes. But it's treated as a background decoration, they are never actually used for anything, let alone studied.
People only believe what they want to believe. Leftists typically have the ability to accept some unpleasant truths about life.
Don't listen to what I was telling you six months ago, listen to what I am telling you right now.
This is a very good example about how the concept of conspiracy theories are used to discredit unpleasant facts and dissenting views. In this example settled facts like the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and the fascist elements in the Ukrainian state are lumped together with completely deranged bullshit. In that way doubting the official NATO line becomes equivalent with believing that vaccines are evil.
Is this a conspiracy theory in itself? Are the stenographers of power doing this deliberately? I don't think so. I think journalists and politicians and basically everyone who gets to speak in bourgeois mainstream media is so thoroughly propagandise that they believe all of this themselves. They're not plotting to plant brainworms among the masses as much as they're infecting people with their own brainworms.
You think the people who make their money from boner pill ads are going to hire a guy that doesn't believe in boner pill ads? As Chompsky says, they've been selected and promoted for having the right brainworms.
Nobody is telling them what to write but if they wanted to write something different they would never have gotten those jobs in the first place.
You think the people who make their money from boner pill ads are going to hire a guy that doesn’t believe in boner pill ads?
glances at BlueChew
glances at CumTown
shrugs
I have 0% confidence that voting machines aren't rigged in every election because of how many times its been shown to be trivial to do so, and we know elections have been stolen before (2000 presidential election stands out as the highest profile case). While both parties could definitely do this, it's possible that the Democrats don't try because they really are stupid enough to truly believe in the system.
Edit: don't click the link below. It's not a real website, I didn't know adding a .com would result in a clickable link. I'm getting too old for all this computer nonsense.
There was that website up for awhile, BernieWouldHaveLost.com or something, and I actually am pretty convinced by the evidence put forward that at least in the Democratic 2020 primaries, there was some voting machine fuckery. Looking at how well Bernie did in places like Colorado (which has no voting machines at all, everything is paper) compared to how poorly he performed in other states was particularly convincing to me.
So yeah, I dunno. It would be easy to fuck with voting machines and their tallies and fundamentally, I do believe that's happening, probably in every election they've ever been used in.
This is one of those things I'd never mention around any lib, however, because the evidence you need to say something like this basically doesn't exist. We would need people on tape (probably video) admitting that they tipped the scales, and even then that video would probably get called fake.
Fucking American electoral politics, my God.
The Iowa primaries were rigged both times as well. I was there and saw some shit, and its been pretty well documented by other people.
I mean, just look at the Iowa primary wiki. Bernie got double the votes of Biden and almost half the delegates. Don't even need to rig the votes.
its the difference between 'rigged' as in under the board cheating and moving of votes and 'rigged' the system is designed and upheld to advance a certain sort of candidate. Like, the 2016 primaries were rigged by super delegates but those are also in the rules.
Americans, liberals and conservatives alike, will get angry at the suggestion that elections might be tampered with this (with exception for Biden's election with the later group, but that's a special case). They have to believe our elections work and the outcomes are correct.
However, when I try to describe how democracy works in Cuba... it doesn't matter how much painstaking detail I go into to show the elections aren't rigged. Like, they literally just have secret paper ballots put into a box and then they're counted publicly. Basically tamper-proof. But whenever I've brought it up to any American, they are 100% convinced the Communist Party rigs every election to ensure they win, and they will not consider any evidence to the contrary.
All elections can be tampered with, secret ballots can be faked/swapped out and open voting can be blatantly bribed or punished for.
More people believing school shootings are false flags or staged in some way than believe Ukraine has a skinhead problem
:agony-limitless:
The bourgeoisie has a common class interest but they’re not ruling together in the sense that they’re meeting in some dungeon every night to dictate the world’s events.
I hear this line a lot but I think it's probably giving up a bit too much ground. Individual bourgeois do meet and conspire to defend their individual interests, and they're often class-conscious enough to directly militate for their class interest as well. And at the very top, in bourgeois democratic government you have delegates of bourgeois interests meeting in Congress and acting out the results of their back-room dealings for public display. It's a conspiracy against the public at every level, and there's no need to concede the language about dungeons.
:parenti: wrote a book and gave some talks about this. Here's one:
"I mean do you think there’s actually, do you think there’s actually a group of men sitting in a room? Who sit there and are plotting these things, for some reason? Do you think there’s a group of people sitting around in a room?" Because somehow that image is supposed to be very compelling, you know, it’s so improbable, and I always say "oh no no they don’t sit around in a room. They meet on carousels and they talk to each other that way. Or they go skydiving, they all lock arms, what do you think they are talking about when they lock arms like that? That’s where they meet." Of course they meet in rooms! Where the hell else you think they’re gonna meet?
Imagine understanding that American gladio is real but thinking it's a ploy for gun control legislation and not for fascism. Americans are fucking hopeless
Death to America
its been a decade since someone took an ar15 and killed 20 kindergartners, there has been no national gun control but a lot of fascism since then. the 2nd amendment was created to put down slave revolts and further colonize what we now know as the united states, it'll never be taken away because "freedom" and gun violence, by the wrong people, is the perfect excuse to militarize the police
I took part in this survey actually.
They said “now we will ask you some questions about conspiracies” and then asked:
Regardless of who is officially in charge of the government and other organizations, there is a single group of people who secretly control events and rule the world together.
As if it is a conspiracy that the bourgeoisie exist
It's definitely not just one group. The interests of the silicon valley social media moguls is not the same as the interests of the rural bourgeoisie or the interests of the petrol industry. They overlap a lot when it comes to suppressing labor but they still have very different policy goals.
Most people are extremely aware that "rich people/the 1%/corporations" rule the world and the US in particular. They just don't have a developed Marxist understanding of what that means. We should be starkly differentiating ourselves from anti-semitic conspiracists, demonstrating how they have taken obvious facts and created a secretive narrative that actually protects the bourgeoisie. This is not a meaningless distinction: one of the primary methods bourgeois elements use to disguise the operation of their power is this exact conspiracy theory.
Again, though, the bourgeoisie is obviously not a single group. It is many, many millions of people, often in economic, national, and ideological conflict with each other. Their class interests align, of course, but any analysis of history will that it's a class inherently rife with internal conflict.
To expand on this with an obvious example happening today: the Russian invasion of Ukraine. There is a conflict between one faction of the Russian bourgeoisie, who believe their interests are best protected by this war as a way to maintain Russia's stance in the world and prevent power shifting to the NATO block, and another faction who believe the war is economically self-destructive. That pro-war faction, who wield more power and thus are executing the war, have brought the resources of both factions into conflict with the Ukrainian bourgeoisie, who believe they are most benefited by allying themselves with a western imperialist bourgeoisie and their governments. Those various imperialist bourgeois governments have a variety of their own conflicts: some (US + UK especially) want to push the war as hard as they can without becoming directly involved, and actively desire an extension of the war. Other bourgeoisie (German, primarily) want to limit the scope of the war because their own economic interests and political power are dependent on energy supplied by the same Russian capitalists contending internally over the war. And throughout all of this are a vast array of non-bourgeois people and organizations, fighting to exert power in their own way, to influence the conflict to their own benefit.
The conspiracist would say, no, none of those above factors are real: there is a (((secret cabal))) that has puppeteered all the above actors into performing exactly the way they want. That's both obviously incorrect and disempowering. If the (((secret cabal))) is that powerful, if there are no other powers at play, there is truly no hope for revolution. That's why In reality, the inability of the bourgeoisie to fully align themselves is an enormous advantage that we can leverage. Exploiting it will be key to a successful socialist movement. Look at China, which plays all these different national capitalist groups (including their own!) against each other as a means of increasing the power of the communist party and improving the conditions of its people.
So, let me reiterate: no, there is not one secret group of people that rule the world. There are many bourgeoisies, and they rule in the open, and they do not rule uncontested. That is all to our advantage.
People do not understand it as a matter of class at all, that's why they believe the antisemitic tropes. Q anon works because they think all this is happening under the surface, not going exactly as intended. They might understand rich people can do things they can't, but they do not see the relationship between money, the means of production, and themselves. That's why the rich people lots of chuds hate are celebrities, who are somewhat proletariat in nature. They can see them doing things they can't because of wealth, and get mad it isn't the things they would do, or they're sometimes jealous. Yes our view is not the same as blood libel, but saying we broadly believe a lot of people make decisions we don't get to know about that hurt us is true.
saying we broadly believe a lot of people make decisions we don’t get to know about that hurt us is true
But that's not the question, is it? The question is "Regardless of who is officially in charge of the government and other organizations, there is a single group of people who secretly control events and rule the world together." That's not at all similar to what we actually believe. We believe that the working class is broadly oppressed and exploited by the capitalist class, who wield most of the levers of power. They do so openly, and they compete amongst each other constantly. The people in charge are exactly the people we see at the heads of governments and corporations.
Well, obviously, we know it isn't true because there are Two Parties that definitely rival one another for power and don't operate as left/right hands attached to a single bureaucratic torso.
Also, it isn't as though the bourgeoisie always act seemlessly. There's class-interest, sure. But when Elon will literally fuck Sergei Brine's wife behind his back, there's also maybe a bit of bad blood at the top. Palace Intrigue has always been a thing, and plenty of these people would gleefully stab each other in the back given half an opportunity.
Just like how spy fiction makes the CIA look way cooler than they actually are, the same is true about the capitalist class and how they run the world. They're just as evil as the the smoke filled room with shadowy faces and creepy masques to conceal their identities they're depicted as....and yet so so much more pedestrian and boring in real life.
:parenti: bit “of course they meet in rooms, where else are they going to meet!”
Elon musk has infinite money, he dresses like it's his first communion. Zuckerberg dresses like it's casual Friday but he can't not were a button up. Gates and bezos just wear normal suits. If I were them, I would wear really elaborate clothing all the time. Tailored suits with murals or intricate patterns on them, weird experimental fashion that was still somewhat wearable, old fashioned suits dandies would wear in the 1700s.
Edit: dandies, not daddies
You know you're old money when you've got too many inbred genetic abnormalities to be seen in public.
Gates and bezos just wear normal suits.
Gates practically invented the idea of "business casual". One of the few nice things Microsoft did was not forcing everyone in the office to dress like they were going to prom. He's always looked like a schlub, and that was well before old age turned him into a pile of melted wax.
I'm imagining I'm like them morally but have my aesthetics/general sense of taste still.
So this survey seems to be specifically referencing the 2020 general election with its questioning but the most likely time for digital voter manipulation was the dem primaries. There was some cute little site detailing exit poll discrepancies for key states in the sanders biden race. It wouldn't be surprising given that the dems don't care about winning and voter manipulation wouldn't be illegal because it's just a party affair afaik
If you incorporate a Nazi militia into your national military, does that make you a Nazi sympathizer?
Does this imply that West Germany, the US, and NATO are nazis and/or nazi sympathizers?
:yes-comm:
1 depends so much on the interpretation that it's almost useless as a question. Like sure, I do get that 90% of the lib/chud responses do take it to be literally some secret Illuminati shadow government that controls all of the world leaders directly and they sit down and have their shadow government meetings where they discuss how to brainwash everyone and start wars and shit, but the wording still leaves open the more reasonable interpretation there too.
Although the fact that billionaire power is basically never secret makes 1 incorrect I suppose, they just openly control it.
The precise phrasing of the question makes me think that 41% is mostly chuds who think the "single group" isn't mostly the wealthiest people in the world, but rather "liberal elites" who want to turn their grandkids into trans atheists.
Honestly as a Marxist I'm not sure how I would respond to that question.
I would probably answer no to it, because I know what the implications here are. It's the right wing idea of a "Secret Jewish and also Atheist at the same time Cabal that plans Covid and infecting children with communism at college" sort of shit, and not a reasonable or fair critique of how capital influences government and society.
- literally correct, they're called capitalists
- Uh, yeah? So are Top Republicans. What part of All Billionaires Are Paedophiles don't you understand?
- This is a typo, it should read "2000"
- You really have to be a dumb MAGA cuck to believe this, but not the simpler and more evidenced conclusion that the US used COVID itself as a bioweapon against China
- You are legitimately subhuman if you believe this
- See 5, this is just further proof that Yankoids are subhuman
- idk, probably? I mean, world/western media have spent 6 month telling me how wholesome chungus soldiers wearing literal nazi insignias are, is that really as far as the propaganda machine would go?
- If 9 people allow 1 nazi to sit at a table and enjoy their company, you have a table of 10 nazis. If a government formally accepts a nazi regiment of "only muh 900" into their standing armed forces, and the same oligarchs bankroll those 900 nazis and your president, you have a nazi regime
literally correct, they’re called capitalists
haha no, because they control the world openly, not in secret.
so no, you're wrong, you get 927275483 pinocchios.
Things that are true that we don't talk about.
Things that are false that we don't talk about.
Things that are false that we report as false.
Things that are true that we report as false.
Looks like a great test suite for evaluating the effectiveness of your propaganda.
- No, dumb maga bullshit
Not if we count what went down in the Iowa primaries
